True Crime Stories: Felix Vail

True Crime Stories: Felix Vail 

When Felix Vail’s first wife died in an apparent tragic accident, people sympathized with the man and his infant son. Even when his partner disappeared years later, again, it seemed like a horrible coincidence. But when his second wife vanished, suspicions arose that perhaps Vail was hiding a terrible secret. What followed was the closure of one of the oldest cold cases in America, and the arrest of the oldest suspect to date. A Dark Side Vail was born in 1939, and had four siblings. The family resided in Montpelier, Mississippi, on a dairy farm. As a student, he did very well and was often at the top of his class, but he was known to indulge in a bit of mischief from time to time. As a youngster, Vail had wanted to become a pilot, even though he was very good at farming. He applied to the military to be a pilot, but he was rejected. He would later admit that he was not someone who could follow orders which would have made a military career impossible. His sister, Kaye, described Vail as being just like anyone else when they were growing up but he always wanted things done his way. He would defy his father’s orders, and would do things how he saw fit rather than follow his father’s instructions. By the time he was around 16 years old, his father had doled out many ‘whippings’ to try and straighten him out but according to his sister, these weren’t enough. The siblings were rather close, but Vail was known to have a cruel streak, particularly towards animals. At one point the cat had given birth to kittens, and Mrs. Vail didn’t want them, so Vail put them in a sack and either shot at them until the sack stopped moving, or he would swing the sack and bash them against the wall until they were dead. It was also well-known that Vail had shot and killed the neighbor’s dog. His sister recalled that he may have killed two or three of the neighbor’s dogs, but there doesn’t seem to have been any repercussions for his actions. Despite this cruelty towards animals, women seemed to be attracted to Vail. He was never short of dates, and later claimed he had dated up to several hundred throughout his life. But, one young lady he met at McNeese State University captured his heart - Mary Horton. Mary Horton Mary had grown up in a small town called Eunice, located in the heart of Cajun country, Louisiana. The family was poor, but somehow Mary managed to make her way to McNeese, studying education and becoming a sorority sister with Chi Omega. This former homecoming queen was very well-liked, and was popular with young men. According to her brother Will, Mary had received many marriage proposals, but she turned them all down, choosing to date Vail instead. Mary had fallen in love with Vail, and he proclaimed to love her also. The relationship wasn’t as sweet and loving as some people thought, however. Mary sent letters to her friends saying that although she loved him, she didn’t really like him. But she didn’t think she could ever end the relationship, and she hoped that things would get better. Eerily, Mary once expressed to a friend that she would die young, by drowning, but she didn’t explain why she felt this way. Mary was unaware of Vail’s cruel streak, and although he didn’t treat her well at times, she accepted his marriage proposal. On July 1, 1961, they were married. Just a year later, she gave birth to their son, Bill. Not long after, things deteriorated at home. Mary told her family that at one point Vail had gotten angry with baby Bill and threw him against a wall. Vail had never wanted the child in the first place. By the summer of 1962, Mary had had enough. She went to visit her mother to talk about her plans to seek a divorce from Vail. Unfortunately, her mother told her to return to Vail and work on her marriage. This was an era where divorces were strongly frowned upon, and women were always encouraged to honor their vows, even if their husbands were awful. The night of 28 October 1962 would end with a tragedy that caused speculation and suspicion for decades to come. According to Vail, the couple had set out in a small boat on the river just after twilight. He claimed they were laying weighted fishing lines, called trotlines, on the Calcasieu River and the boat hit a tree stump in the water.

This caused Mary to fall overboard, and despite searching, he was unable to find her. Mary’s body was found two days after the ‘accident’, and her funeral was quickly held the following day. Four days later, the police arrested Vail and began questioning him about the events of his wife’s death. Things weren’t adding up, and when Vail refused to take a lie detector test, the authorities were convinced he was guilty. However, when the case went before the Grand Jury in 1963, the coroner had listed the death as accidental, so they decided there was not enough evidence to prosecute Vail and he was set free. Mary’s family always disputed the accidental theory put forward by Vail. For starters, Mary was deeply afraid of dark water, so there was no way she willingly would have gone out in the boat at night time. Secondly, the baby had been left alone back at the house while they went out in the boat, and this didn’t make sense. Even Vail’s sister, Kaye, didn’t believe his story. She also knew of Mary’s fear of the water, and didn’t believe Mary would have boarded a boat without wearing a life preserver. She also agreed that there was no way Mary would have left the baby at home by himself. 

Sharon Hensley Goes Missing 

Several years later, in the later part of the 1960s, Vail and his young son had moved to San Francisco. There, while attending what he called a ‘pot party’, Vail met Sharon Hensley and they embarked on a relationship. Rather than working legitimately, the couple lived off the land, often stealing fruit from orchards. Both Vail and Sharon were fond of taking acid, and would often indulge in the drug in between their meals. According to Sharon’s brother Brian,

his sister’s body was wasting away, and he believed Vail had complete control over her life. It seemed she didn’t know how to end the relationship even though she probably wanted to. Brian believed Sharon was staying with Vail purely out of fear of what he would do to her if she tried to leave. Vail’s son, Bill, made his way to the police station in 1970 with shocking allegations against his father and Sharon. Bill told the police his father had forced him to take drugs, and that he had a supply of them on him. Police arrested Vail and he was charged with possession of drugs, and Bill was sent to live with his grandparents, who were awarded custody. Vail and Sharon headed off to Florida six months later. Sharon took a photo of the two of them and sent it to her parents, labeling the photo ‘making travel plans’. Her parents were disturbed by the photo, saying their daughter’s eyes looked like they had no excitement in them that would be expected of someone about to embark on a journey. Their next contact was a phone call from Sharon to her parents. Sharon announced to her mother that she was going to make a porn movie in Florida, and her mother almost collapsed. After hanging up the phone, her mother turned to Sharon’s brother, Brian, and stated she thought Sharon was in trouble. In 1973, Vail sent a letter to Sharon’s parents with a somewhat farfetched story. He claimed they had met a couple from Australia who were on a sailing trip around the world and they had been invited to go with them. Vail didn’t want to go and refused, but Sharon wanted to join the couple on their trip. According to Vail, he gave them his blessings and Sharon left with the couple. Nobody ever heard from Sharon again. 

The Disappearance of Annette Craver

 By 1981, Vail was living in Houston. He was now 41 years old, and he met a young beautiful girl, Annette Craver, who was just 15 years old at the time. Her father had passed away when she was very young, and she was due to inherit a substantial life insurance policy when she reached her 18th birthday. Despite the huge age difference, they began dating, and Annette quickly fell for Vail. Her mother, Mary, later stated she trusted Annette’s decision to be with Vail despite him being much older. In hindsight, Mary thought that if she herself had have been more mature, she would have realized there was something very wrong with the age difference, especially due to Annette’s upcoming inheritance payout. Vail and Annette were married on 15 August 1983, when Annette was just 17 years old. As soon as she turned 18, Vail started taking money from her. First, it was the vast sum of $98,000 to help him pay off some old debts and loans. Annette also transferred the deeds to her house to Vail. In 1984, Vail and Annette went on a vacation, but only one of them returned. According to Vail, he dropped Annette off at a bus station in St. Louis because Annette wanted to travel on to Mexico. Annette disappeared, and was never heard from again.

 Cold Case Arrest 

The case of Mary Horton’s death lay dormant for five decades until a journalist, Jerry Mitchell, of the Clarion-Ledger investigated it for a series of articles he was writing in 2012. Mitchell detailed all of the circumstances of the night Mary died, and this led to the case being re-examined by forensic pathologist Terry Welke. Welke determined Mary’s death had been a homicide, not an accidental death. This information was given to the police, and in June 2013, Vail was arrested. He was subsequently charged with second-degree murder. Despite the time that had elapsed, the District Attorney John DeRosier believed it was never too late, and that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Vail successfully. 

An Old Doctrine

 To further enhance the possibility of Vail being guilty, it was important that the disappearances of the other two women in his life be included in testimony. However, this is not normally acceptable, as Vail had not been charged in those cases. The prosecutors had to convince the court to allow this testimony, and to do so, they invoked ‘the doctrine of chances’. The United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces explained the doctrine as follows:

 ‘The doctrine posits that it is unlikely a defendant would be repeatedly, innocently involved in similar, suspicious circumstances’. 

This doctrine first came into existence back in 1912, during the trial of George Joseph Smith in Britain, the perpetrator of the ‘brides in the bath murders’. This case was very similar to Vail’s, as three of Smith’s wives had drowned in a bathtub over a period of three years. Smith had used aliases for each of his marriages, so at first the police didn’t piece the three deaths together. But they soon determined that it was beyondbeyond coincidental that these women had all died in the same manner, and each was found on their back in a shallow tub. Equally disturbing was that each of Smith’s wives had either signed a will or taken out a life insurance policy, with Smith being the sole beneficiary of each, within days before their deaths. By enabling the information from each of the three deaths at his trial, Smith was shown without a doubt to be the killer, and was subsequently executed. Allowing the doctrine of chances in Vail’s case meant that by adding the testimony of the family members of the other two women who had gone missing, the prosecution team would be able to show an established pattern, and therefore prove he was guilty. 

Trial and Sentence 

At the age of 76, Vail’s trial began on August 8 2016. It was the oldest prosecution in US history of a suspected serial killer. It had been almost 54 years since Mary Horton had died. The jury was made up of six males and six females, nine of whom were white and three black.

The District Attorney, DeRosier, told the jury that Vail had taken out a life insurance policy on Mary months before she died, and despite receiving the settlement, he refused to even pay for his wife’s funeral. Her family had paid the bill instead. DeRosier also pointed out that with his wife Mary, his partner Sharon Hensley and second wife Annette Craver, he had been the last person known to be with them before their disappearances and death. First Mary died in 1962, then Sharon disappeared in 1973, and Annette vanished in 1984. It’s interesting that there is eleven years between each disappearance, but there has been no speculation made on this fact.